Troubled Woman
She standsIn the quiet darkness,This troubled woman,Bowed byWeariness and pain,Like anAutumn flowerIn the frozen rain.Like aWind-blown autumn flowerThat never lifts its headAgain.
About this text
Troubled Woman is in the public domain. This text is taken from The weary blues, Project Gutenberg ebook #74745; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Langston Hughes, Troubled Woman, in The Weary Blues (1926), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #74745, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hughes-weary-blues/troubled-woman.html, id L01535.
Form and metre
Troubled Woman is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 3.9 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 58% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 --A-AABA-B-A stands · darkness · womanA · by · painA · anA · flowerB · rainA · a · flowerB · head · againA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| She stands | 2 | ·· |
| In the quiet darkness, | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| This troubled woman, | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| Bowed by | 2 | ·· |
| Weariness and pain, | 5 | /˘˘·· |
| Like an | 2 | ·· |
| Autumn flower | 4 | /˘/˘ |
| In the frozen rain. | 5 | ··/˘· |
| Like a | 2 | ·· |
| Wind-blown autumn flower | 6 | ··/˘/˘ |
| That never lifts its head | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Again. | 2 | ˘/ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.